Chapter Text
Jason should have known. He should have been sharp enough, smart enough, skeptical enough to realize that whatever this was - the glowing feeling in his chest, the way the edges of his mouth hurt from smiling, the scent that clung to his skin - would never, ever last.
Good things were meant for good people, and that category decidedly didn’t include him.
There was the sense of something wrong as soon as Jason entered the warehouse - an off feeling, a weird hunch - but he ignored it until he walked in far enough to see Roy on the couch.
With his arms wrapped around Kori, both of them red-eyed and blotchy-faced.
“Roy?” Jason asked tentatively, dropping his bag and staring at the pair. “Kori? What happened?”
There was a moment of silence where Roy wouldn’t meet Jason’s eyes and Kori just stared at him, before stiltedly offering, “Have you… Have you not heard?” Roy tensed up beside her, pressing his face into the curve of her shoulder.
“Heard what?” Jason asked, his panic ratcheting up, flooding his lungs like bitterly cold water. “Heard what? What the fuck is going on?”
“Jason,” Roy said, his voice soft so sad. “It’s… It’s Dick.”
Dick is hurt, Dick is missing, Dick is leaving, ran through Jason’s head, all his worst fears on repeat. He was used to watching them loop through his mind, on late nights when Jason woke up alone and his heart instantly sped up into panic, despite the fact that Dick was just in the washroom, across the hall, close enough to hear Jason’s hyperventilating and run back into the room.
None of Jason’s fears had come true yet, and he’d allowed Dick’s presence in his life- Dick’s love - to lull him into a false sense of security.
It was the worst mistake he’d ever made.
“Dick… He’s dead.”
Jason’s mouth dropped, and he stared at Roy in shock as his gaze fell again to his lap, to Kori’s hands clasped there. There was… There was no way. They had seen each other that morning, for Christ’s sakes, the night before they had -
It wasn’t true.
“That’s not fucking funny,” Jason snapped, and Roy’s head lifted so he could look at Jason in distress. “Seriously, it’s really not. Where the fuck is he?”
Kori stood a little and held out a hand towards Jason. “Roy is not lying,” she told him, and there were tears welling in her eyes again. “Richard is… Richard is dead. They found his body in the -“
“Stop!” Jason yelled. Kori flinched and stepped back as if she had been slapped. “I don’t know what the fuck kind of game you two are playing, but Dick is fine. I’m going over to his place now.”
“Jason -” Roy started to protest, but Jason had already scooped his bag off the floor and strode furiously out the door. This was - it was a sick joke, it had to be. How many nights had Dick held him in his arms, soothing his aches and worries with soft strokes of his hands down Jason’s back, promising him, “I’m not going anywhere. You can’t get rid of me now.”
The drive to Dick’s apartment was a blur; Jason felt like he was awakening from a long dream as he gripped the door handle, carefully unlocking it with his key - the key Dick had given him. He stepped in and froze, looking at one of the many blankets puddled on the floor, left exactly like it had been the night before -
“It’s okay,” Dick whispered, voice low and gentle in Jason’s ear. “We don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, we do,” Jason argued, and he could sense Dick’s frown despite the fact that his eyes were shut tight. Jason took a deep breath and counted down slowly, still using Bruce’s old anxiety-management techniques from his time as Robin. They usually worked, helped Jason quell the storm locked inside his chest without resorting to violence.
This time, not so much.
“Jase,” Dick tried again, “I’m serious. I don’t need this. I love what we do already. This… This isn’t worth it, not if it’s going to hurt you, not if it’s going to cause you anxiety.”
Jason forced his eyes open and scrunched them into an approximation of a glare, the closest he could get to at the moment. “Goldie, shut up. I’m not doing this to hurt myself. I’m doing it because I - because I want to. Because of all the assholes I’ve given this to, you’re the only one that really matters. You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted to give this to.”
Dick grinned a little. “Did you just call me an asshole?”
“I’m going to,” Jason huffed, “if you don’t start moving. Come on, Dickie. I’m not some virginal kid. Get on with it.”
Dick’s smile softened until he was just looking at Jason like he wanted to scoop him up into his arms and hold him impossibly close. “Do you remember what I said to you, the first time we kissed?”
Jason feigned ignorance for half a second before he realized that Dick would see right through it. “That you were going slow because you wanted me to know that you cared about me.”
“Right,” Dick said, and there was that smile again as he leaned in, running his lubed-up fingers down Jason’s thigh. “So let me love you slowly, Little Wing.”
“Jason.” The voice came from just behind him; Jason swallowed thickly and turned. Tim was standing in Dick’s doorway, his hair stuck to the tear-tracks on his cheeks, his hands carefully cradling Dick’s domino mask. “Jason, I’m so sorry.”
Jason fell to the floor.